


When The World Ends

by Bajada



Category: Supernatural
Genre: End of the World, F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Writer Chuck Shurley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26029180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bajada/pseuds/Bajada
Summary: It didn't matter that it was the end of the world. It didn't matter that Dean and Sam had spent their entire lives fighting against exactly this, only for it to happen anyway. It didn't matter that the angels had fallen and Cas and Jack had lost their grace. Because the end of this world means that everything can start anew
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy & Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	When The World Ends

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a few years since I have written anything fandom related, so this is my attempt at it again. I want my boys to be happy, so I tried to give them that...comments appreciated 😊

It didn't matter that it was the end of the world. It didn't matter that Dean and Sam had spent their entire lives fighting against exactly this, only for it to happen anyway. It didn't matter that the angels had fallen and Cas and Jack had lost their grace. Because the end of this world means that everything can start anew.

  
Dean stood inside infinity. It was warmth and comfort and safety, the likes of which he had never felt. It was a sense of peace he hadn't known since he was four years old and his mother held him over Sam's crib to kiss him goodnight, and his father lifted him up in his arms and tucked him into his own bed. It was Hey Jude, and tomato and rice soup, and the warm leather of the impala's seats as the scent of Midwest hay fields drifted through her open windows on a warm summer breeze…

  
He reveled in the feeling, in the bliss of absolute peace, so much so that he almost missed the voice speaking to him through the warm glow of the nothingness around him.

  
"Hey, Dean."

  
His eyes snapped open. In front of him stood Chuck. Dean wanted to feel angry. He wanted to feel hatred towards the man, the God, who had been torturing and toying with him and his brother and everyone they've ever loved through their entire lives...but he couldn't.

  
"Chuck?" Dean asked quietly. "Where am I? What is this place? What have you done with Sam? And Jack? And where is Cas?"

  
"They're here too. Well, not HERE here, but they're safe. We're all on the same plane of existence right now, you and I are just riding a different ripple for a bit." Chuck said. "I needed to talk to you…"

  
Dean looked at Chuck, confusion spreading across his face as Chuck continued to speak.

  
"You remember how everything in the world has to have balance? Heaven and Hell? Me and Amara? Well, this place is a part of that balance. The Empty, it's nothing. It's endless, endless nothing. This place is...well everything. This is where all the worlds I've ever made started. It's where every Sam and Dean that have ever existed have come from. This is where it all begins. You could say, it's my writing room."

  
Chuck stepped closer to Dean, the smile on his face not malicious or spiteful, but benevolent and kind, the way God should have been from the beginning. Dean allowed himself to be taken in by his words. He listened and tried to comprehend, but it was like he was hearing Chuck through a fog, the sense of his words just out of reach…

  
"I still don't understand…" Dean said slowly.

  
Chuck looked at him long and hard, and a sadness passed over his face.

  
"Oh Dean...I'm sorry. I've been so cruel to you, and your brother, and Castiel...so many times, so many worlds...I've watched you try and fail and live and die so many times, all for the story. But it was never good enough...the story was never *perfect*..."

  
Chuck put a hand on Dean's shoulder.

  
"Maybe it's time I let the characters take control. Maybe it's time to try one last time to get the story right...Dean? What do YOU want your story to be? What kind of worlds do YOU want to build?"

  
Dean's eyes opened wide, a powerful force tugging at his heart. What did HE want? Only a couple of people in Dean's entire life had ever asked him what HE wanted. And it's not like it had ever mattered anyway; Dean Winchester didn't get to have what he wanted. There was always something else more important.

  
He thought for a long time about Chuck's question. Thought long and hard. In the end, only one thing could come to his mind…

  
"I want...I want to be happy…" He said, eyes slipping shut in the warm glow of The Everything that surrounded him.

  
Chuck smiled and laid his hand over Dean's heart. He could feel every emotion that Dean had ever felt. Every burden, every heartbreak, every fleeting moment of joy, every happy memory. Every desire Dean's heart had ever dared to dream of was laid bare before Chuck's eyes, and he knew exactly the world to create for him.

  
"It's okay, Dean. You can be happy now."

  
And then Chuck was gone, and Dean was filled with the sensation of falling. When he dared to finally open his eyes again, he was no longer standing in that bright, light filled place, but instead, on the porch of a small house.

  
He looked around, confusion spreading through him. In front of him was a garden full of flowers growing in carefully planted beds. Flowers he had never seen before in vibrant shades of every color he had ever thought of. Around them buzzed hundreds of bees, floating lazily through the summer heat that wafted the sweet floral aroma over him. In the distance, he could hear the sound of cars on the freeway. Closer, a bicycle bell, and the sounds of children playing…

  
"Hello, Dean."

  
Dean turned quickly, hardly daring to believe his ears as the deep, gravelly voice spoke his name, the same as it had a hundred times before.

  
"Cas?"

  
Behind him, in the doorway of the small house, stood Castiel. Dean lurched forward, his feet moving of their own volition and embraced the man before him. He breathed in everything that was Castiel. The faint scent of cinnamon and watermelon filled his nostrils as he wrapped his arms around Cas' shoulders and buried his face in his neck, holding onto him like he was the last tether binding him to earth. Dean stepped back and looked at his angel, reverence and confusion in his eyes.

  
"Cas...Is this...are we dead? Is this heaven?"

  
Cas shook his head. "I don't know. I don't believe so. This doesn't feel like Heaven. It feels like...earth. It feels like home…"

  
"What happened? Chuck, he said he was going to try the story one last time…"

  
"I know." Said Cas. "We were there. We were inside Creation. We heard him." Cas cocked his head to the side. "He said it was your turn to be happy, Dean. Is this...is this how you would write the world?"

  
Dean slowly walked inside and looked around at the house in which he stood. Trinkets of their past adorned the walls and shelves; memories of hunting preserved in stasis, as though they were simply remnants of a time long since passed. On a wall above the mantelpiece were newspaper clippings framed and hung with pride, handwritten letters of thanks from people they had saved, graduation photos and wedding pictures of children who had had the chance to grow up. And in the centre, a photo of five people, together, leaning against Baby, took pride of place on the mantel. Jack kneeled in the front, grinning widely, his innocence and carefree spirit visible. Sam stood next to Eileen, bent low and kissing her cheek as she laughed at him fondly, her arms wrapped protectively around her clearly pregnant belly. Next to them stood Dean, his arm slung over Cas' shoulders, while Cas wrapped one of his own around Dean's waist. His head rested on Dean's shoulder, while his other hand was placed proudly on Jack's.

  
Dean picked the photograph up and held it carefully in his hands, as if afraid that if he dropped it, this world, this illusion, might shatter into pieces as well.

  
"Do you like it?"

  
Dean spun around. There stood Chuck, hands jammed into his pockets awkwardly, a small grin playing across his face.

  
"I don't understand…" said Cas, moving to stand beside Dean.

  
"In every other version of earth I've ever made, The Winchester Saga ends in tragedy. Sometimes you all die, sometimes Dean is left to wander the earth alone, sometimes I send you all to different places to suffer alone for eternity. Depends on my mood...but, like I said, the ending is never perfect. And so I thought, what am I doing wrong?! Why can't I get this right?! And then it hit me. I'm forcing the plot. A truly great author lets their characters write themselves. So, what better way to test that out than to let the hero write the ending?"

  
Dean looked down at the photograph again. He did say he wanted to be happy, and the Dean in this photo looked happier than Dean thinks he'd ever dreamed of getting to be.

  
Chuck continued, "So when I looked into Dean's heart to see what he desired, it was pretty simple. You wanted Sam to have a family, and he does. Sam, Eileen, and little Rowan live in the house next door. By the way, congrats on being an Uncle. You wanted Jack to get to experience life. He's off at college. He's studying world religions and philosophy. Personally, I don't think it makes for great career prospects but, hey, better than being a writer."

  
He chuckled at his own joke. Dean's heart grew fuller with every word Chuck spoke. Sam had a house, and a wife, and a son. He had a nephew. Jack was living a normal life at college…

  
"...And anyway, he's not my son. He's yours."

  
Dean's head snapped up as Chuck spoke.

  
"What are you talking about?" Asked Cas, and Chuck grinned. He reached behind him onto a shelf and held up another photograph. This one was just Dean and Cas, together. Cas had a wide grin on his face and his arm once again wrapped tightly around Dean's waist. Dean held a bottle of champagne in his hand, which presumably is what the two of them were drenched in. His other arm was wrapped tightly around the back of Cas' neck, and Dean was kissing him firmly on the cheek.

  
"It's your wedding day."

  
The air escaped Dean's lungs like he had been hit in the chest with a two-by-four…

  
Chuck smiles even bigger now. "See, more than anything else, the thing Dean's heart ached for most, the thing that was going to make him happiest...was you, Castiel. It was always supposed to be you."

  
Dean looked at Cas, then down at their hands. Sure enough, each of them wore matching silver rings on their left hands. Dean gulped hard as he felt tears rise up behind his eyes.

  
Dean stuttered, "Chuck...I -"

  
Chuck raised a hand to silence him. "Save it. You write your own stories now. I'm not the author any more. I'm just a fan." And again, he was gone.

  
Dean looked up at Cas, his eyes narrowed, head tilted to the side, and yeah, Dean thought, maybe this was how he would have written the world if given the chance.

  
"Cas, listen man, I'm sorry...I guess I can lie to you and Sam and everyone for ten years but, when it comes to God...well I guess he had to earn that 'all-knowing' title somehow…" Dean laughed nervously. "I should have told you sooner, Cas. I should have told you the moment we left Purgatory the second time that I loved you. Hell, I should have told you a lot sooner than that…" Dean hung his head, not wanting the look in Cas' eyes to shatter the world of happiness he was yearning to be able to get used to.

  
"Does that mean, I'm no longer just an 'honorary Winchester'?" Said Castiel from far too close. Dean looked up and his breath caught in his throat as he realized that Cas had crowded into his space in the not-unpleasant way that he had long gotten used to. His blue eyes were twinkling with something akin to joy as Dean regained his composure.

  
"Um, I...I guess not, no. Not if you took my last name anyway." He quipped. And suddenly, Cas' lips were on his and oh god if he had thought that Creation had felt like bliss, it was only because he hadn't had THIS yet. Cas kissed him like the sky was falling down around them, like tomorrow would never come, and when he pulled away, there were tears shining in his eyes.

  
"You know Dean, there is stupid, and then there is Winchester stupid. I was an angel for longer than I was human. I could hear your desires too. I have known your feelings longer than you yourself have."

  
And Dean threw his head back in the most genuine laugh he had had in years. He laughed at Cas because of course he had known this whole time. He laughed at himself for being 'Winchester stupid'. He laughed at the fact that Sam was a dad. He laughed until he was crying and couldn't breathe and then he realized that this? This was what happiness felt like.

  
He regained himself and wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes. Reaching out, he pulled Cas into his arms again. This was okay. He was allowed to do this. There were no monsters that were going to burst through the front door and try to hurt them. This wasn't a dream cooked up by some djinn so it can trap Dean here forever. God, for the first time in his life, wasn't messing with him.

  
He pulled Cas to him and pressed their lips together again enjoying the moment for all it was worth.

  
It didn't matter that it was the end of the world. It didn't matter that Dean had spent his entire life fighting against exactly this. It didn't matter that the angels had fallen and Cas and Jack had lost their grace. Because the end of this world means that everything can be made better.


End file.
